The breath of a bald eagle is made visible from the cold morning air April 11 at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program . / V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan

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A red-tailed hawk is fed after being medicated April 11 at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program . The hawk was brought into the Raptor Program after being discovered malnourished. It is being brought back to health before being let go. / V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan

Rocky Mountain Raptor Program What: The Rocky Mountain Raptor Program inspires the appreciation and protection of raptors and the spaces where they live through excellence in rehabilitation, education and research. Who to contact: Lisa Winta, lisa@rmrp.org, or call her at (970) 494-7756. Volunteer prerequisites: Volunteers must be at least 12 years old and volunteers 12 to 16 years old must join as a team with a parent. Background checks are run on all new volunteers. Volunteers pay $40 dues when joining and renewal dues of $25 each year. Volunteer responsibilities: Volunteers are fully trained to perform basic husbandry of raptors, including butchering and preparing nutritious raw food, cleaning raptor enclosures and working around the birds safely, cleaning and maintaining the raptor facility. While performing bird care duties, volunteers will make observations of health and behavior and documenting all care in medical records. Volunteers may choose to advance to caring for permanently disabled raptor ambassadors and providing conservation education and outreach or learning to care for birds under rehabilitation. Typical time commitment per week: 3-4 hours per week and must work one shift per week and attend a meeting each Tuesday at 6-7 p.m. Volunteers are required to make a minimum one year commitment. School breaks are accommodated.

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Future Causes Next week Sarah Jane Kyle will share her experience with Make Change NoCo, a financial literacy initiative in Larimer County. Have a charity you love working with? Invite Kyle to tag along for your volunteer hours by emailing SarahKyle@coloradoan.com

Michael Dollard, a rehab intern at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, looks up at a kestrel as he pours water into a bowl. / V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan

Stencil images of various raptors are painted on a wall of a large pen at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program with the dates that the birds were released back into the wild. / V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan

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It was an early morning and, to be completely honest with you, I’m not usually too good with early mornings. But on this particular Thursday morning, I was beyond intrigued and excited for the Causes task at hand.

I’d heard about Rocky Mountain Raptor Program. A brief here or there, a short encounter at a volunteer fair and a couple of phone conversations were my only real experience with the Fort Collins nonprofit. As with most I haven’t had the privilege of working with yet, I went in with no real expectations. It was time to just absorb the experience and watch what goes on behind the scenes at a nonprofit that has a coverage area of more than 50,000 square miles.

I was paired with longtime volunteer Michael Dollard, who’s worked with the nonprofit for a combined five years. Dollard was kind enough to let me shadow him through a morning of chores caring for and treating some of the roughly 300 wild raptors RMRP will work with this year. Another shift was also on tap to care for the 30 or so permanently disabled educational birds, who serve as “ambassadors” to spread the conservation message if they are unable to return to the wild and pass the appropriate federal requirements.

There’s always something unique when you’re working with an entirely wild animal — particularly a bird of prey that’s built to survive and is used to life at the top of the food chain in the wild. And, as you can imagine, the job isn’t always pretty.

Raptor food doesn’t come as neat and tidy as dog or cat food does. A whole fish, gutted and beheaded for a massive female bald eagle I saw in my initial walk through the premises, a skinned chinchilla, some chicken and the rats and mice these animals would typically find in a field are bundled in bags for the animals. All were prepared and butchered by volunteers the night before — a raptor’s smorgasbord.

There are also no snow days when you’re working with an animal, particularly a wild one. If there’s a couple feet of snow, as we saw this week, the birds still need fed, watered and their cages cleaned. That means a lot of long hours and dedication from the group’s core volunteers and staff, who always have at least one person available 24 hours a day to intake and care for injured birds.

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“It’s time-consuming, and it does take a lot of work,” Dollard told me. “You’re working with live, wild, potentially dangerous animals. There’s a lot you have to do to make sure everyone can handle what they’re going to be doing.”

But after a few hours seeing this group in action, I can see why their volunteers are “addicted” to this dirty but fulfilling job, as staff member and former volunteer Becca Stock said.

“There’s so much energy and passion and love and tears that goes into this place,” she said. “You always learn something new and there’s always a puzzle.”

In many ways, their job is thankless. They’re a brief stopping point in a bird’s life that will hopefully lead to a continued future. Take, for example, the two red-tailed hawks I wrote about earlier this month.

They were found at Ackerman Farms north of Fort Collins, paralyzed and barely alive at the base of a tree on the property. They were poisoned. Rocky Mountain Raptor Program took in the birds and for two weeks treated them, rehabilitated them and one week ago said goodbye to the mated pair as they flew into the sky toward a new life.

There were no warm fuzzies for the birds, though the small crowd of humans stood in awe at the beauty of a purely wild creature flying off into the sunset, so to speak. If anything, the hawks couldn’t wait to get as far away as they possibly could from the humans who saved their lives.

And that’s exactly as it should be, said rehabilitation coordinator Mike Tincher.

“You have to remember that they’re wild animals and they look at us like predators,” he said, overseeing the critical care treatment of another red-tailed hawk who had been found emaciated and sickly by a local road. I watched as one volunteer held the bird, head covered to reduce stress, while a staff member carefully but quickly gave it the necessary medications and food.

“We don’t want the birds to be in hand any longer than what it takes to treat them,” Tincher added.

“The good thing is that they don’t like anything we do. We don’t expect them to appreciate it — they just have to tolerate it so they can return to the ecosystem in which they’re so important.”

Sarah Jane Kyle is the Coloradoan reporter covering volunteerism, nonprofits and philanthropy. Follow her on Twitter @sarahjanekyle or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/reportersarahjane.